Anti-drug operations yield arrests and cannabis seizures under SoE

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) says in­ten­si­fied an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions un­der the State of Emer­gency reg­u­la­tions have led to mul­ti­ple ar­rests and the seizure of sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ties of cannabis in co­or­di­nat­ed ex­er­cis­es across east­ern and north­ern Trinidad.

The lat­est op­er­a­tions, con­duct­ed over two days, tar­get­ed ar­eas in San­gre Grande, Va­len­cia and Mal­oney as part of what po­lice de­scribed as sus­tained ef­forts to dis­rupt crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and re­move il­le­gal drugs from com­mu­ni­ties.

On Sun­day, of­fi­cers car­ried out a rov­ing road check ex­er­cise be­tween 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. in the San­gre Grande and Va­len­cia dis­tricts.

The ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed by Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Et­ti­enne and In­spec­tor Harp­er and su­per­vised by Act­ing Sergeant Ram­per­sad, with sup­port from mem­bers of the East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force.

Dur­ing the op­er­a­tion, of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed a 41-year-old man from San­gre Grande af­ter al­leged­ly find­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 507 grammes of cannabis in his pos­ses­sion.

Po­lice said the sus­pect was sub­se­quent­ly charged with pos­ses­sion of cannabis.

Of­fi­cers lat­er con­duct­ed a fol­low-up search un­der the State of Emer­gency reg­u­la­tions at a premis­es linked to the sus­pect, where an ad­di­tion­al 95 grammes of cannabis was re­port­ed­ly dis­cov­ered. Po­lice said the sec­ond find re­sult­ed in an ad­di­tion­al pos­ses­sion charge.

In a sep­a­rate ex­er­cise on Tues­day, June 30, of­fi­cers fo­cused an­ti-crime ef­forts on the Mal­oney dis­trict with­in the North­ern Di­vi­sion.

That op­er­a­tion, con­duct­ed be­tween 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., was co­or­di­nat­ed by As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent Wilkin­son, spear­head­ed by In­spec­tor Smith and su­per­vised by Sergeant Metivi­er.

Po­lice said of­fi­cers con­duct­ed pa­trols, traf­fic en­force­ment and tar­get­ed search­es be­fore ex­e­cut­ing a search at an apart­ment in Build­ing 12 un­der State of Emer­gency au­thor­i­ty.

Dur­ing the search, of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly found ap­prox­i­mate­ly 375 grammes of mar­i­jua­na and TT$7,480 in cash be­lieved to be pro­ceeds linked to drug traf­fick­ing.

A male sus­pect was ar­rest­ed on sus­pi­cion of traf­fick­ing in mar­i­jua­na.

The TTPS said in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to both mat­ters are con­tin­u­ing and re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions aimed at re­duc­ing crime and curb­ing the il­le­gal drug trade.

Po­lice al­so urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to as­sist by re­port­ing sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty to the near­est po­lice sta­tion or anony­mous­ly through Crime Stop­pers.